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D-II Q&A: West Chester's Damien Blair

09/22/2016, 12:00pm EDT
By Josh Verlin

Defending PSAC Freshman of the Year Malik Jackson is back to help lead a young and talented WCU squad. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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(Ed. Note: This story is part of our 2016-17 college season preview, six weeks of coverage that will span everything from Division I through Division III, junior college and more. To access our entire college of preseason content, check out our Season Preview Hub.)

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Earlier this offseason, CoBL spoke with each of the Division I coaches in the area for a Q&A session, and now we’re expanding it to include the various Division II programs in the CoBL coverage region.

With the first full-time D-II and D-III practices beginning on Oct. 15, we’ll be using the next few weeks to sit down with the area’s D-II head coaches and see where they’re at as they prepare for the 2016-17 season.

West Chester’s Damien Blair started two freshmen in the backcourt last year and it paid dividends, as Malik Jackson (15.7 ppg) and Matt Penecale (10.3 ppg, 4.9 apg) played like seasoned veterans all year long to help the Rams to a 23-7 record and NCAA Tournament appearance. Forward Matt Wisely, one of four graduates from last year’s squad, averaged 11.9 ppg and 11.7 rpg, the latter of which was good enough for third-best in the country.

Though Wisely, Avery Brown (10.6 ppg, 4.7 rpg) and Mike Wilson (9.1 ppg, 3.6 rpg), have all departed, Blair has a young and talented core to build around, led by Penecale and Jackson and the rest of their five-man sophomore class but boosted by the arrival of some impressive transfers and freshmen.

Here is the (copy-edited) highlights of our conversation:

City of Basketball Love: Does the offseason feel different when you’re coming off an NCAA Tournament appearance?

Damien Blair: I mean, we’ve been there before, but it doesn’t feel that much different than any other offseason. The focus for us, and it’s been the focus since we’ve been here, is to try to win a conference championship. And three of the last five years, we’ve been there and just come up a little short. The kids that were on campus throughout the course of the summer, that’s been their focus, not necessarily the NCAAs. If you win our league, you’ve got a great opportunity to go deep in the NCAA Tournament and possibly win a national championship, so the NCAA Tournament and to try to win a national championship is an afterthought when it comes to starting the season and trying to put yourself in the best position possible to win a conference title first.

CoBL: You guys had that opportunity to win the league championship on your home court, but fell short to Mercyhurst. How did you see the team respond and react to that game?

DB: That’s an interesting question. We didn’t even think we would be there, starting two freshmen, Malik Jackson was fortunate enough to make the Division II all-freshman team and personally I think Penecale was good enough to be freshman of the year, and he came in second place to Malik. So we didn’t think we’d even be in that situation, but we’ve got two guys that have experience playing in a conference championship and playing in some tough games, so hopefully they’ll be able to take what they learned and do whatever they have to do to get back to that situation.


Matt Penecale (above) finished in the top 50 in the country in assists per game as a freshman. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

CoBL: When you’re starting an all-freshman backcourt, as good as those two were, your first thought isn’t going to be NCAA Tournament. At what point, in the preseason or during the regular season, did you realize that you had something special in those two?

DB: Probably the first week [of practice]. With Penecale, he just sees the floor better than any guard that we’ve had; he doesn’t ever get sped up and he always is looking pass-first and trying to put his teammates in position where he can score. And Malik, the first week he couldn’t miss a shot, and once he starts knocking down 3-pointers he’s almost impossible to guard because he’s so fast and gets to the basket and finishes. My biggest concern was were they going to be able to maintain that high level of play from the start of the season to the end of the season, and they proved that they can do it and then some. I was super-impressed by both of them, to be honest with you.

CoBL: Where have you seen the two of them make strides this offseason?

DB: Penecale’s in better shape, and he’s definitely shooting the ball better than he did in high school and than he did last year. We made some adjustments last year, he got better, but if he was a ‘4’ last year he’s a ‘7’ or ‘8’ right now. Malik’s got a better feel for what the league is all about and what teams are going to try to do to stop him, so he’s been working on different moves to counter [that]. They’ve been working hard, they’re super-excited about getting started, and the big challenge for them, being sophomores, is was your freshman year a fluke, or is that the level of play that you can play at all the time, and then are you able to pull your teammates along and lead them to a championship? And that’s tough, to put two sophomores in a position where they have to lead the rest of the team, and basically everything’s on them. It will be interesting to see how they lead, to be honest with you.

CoBL: As for the rest of your freshman group from last year, what are your expectations of that quartet now that they’ve been on campus for a year?

DB: There’s a chance that Dejour [Williams] may redshirt, but Jackson [Hyland] and Mike [Jolaoso], I think will be a little bit more comfortable than what they were last year. Everything was new to them and I think they understand what the league’s about and what they need to do in order to be successful day in and day out, so we’re expecting a lot from them in losing a Mike Wilson and Avery Brown. They have big shoes to fill. They’re up for the challenge, and we’ve just been concentrating on defend first and then worry about the offense second. There’s also DaShon Giddings; I haven’t seen a kid that finishes like he does in a long time. His downside is he doesn’t shoot it that well, but I think as he gets more comfortable with our system and terminology, I think he’s going to be good.

CoBL: You mentioned Mike Wilson and Avery, and those guys were both physically bigger, stronger guards. Mike Jolaoso is about 5-9 and 165. What does he bring to the table that’s different from those two?

DB: He’s definitely a change of pace. Penecale is slow-motion in the way he plays and Mike is high-octane. He’s probably the best on-ball defender that we have, and to be honest with you, he’s probably one of the toughest kids that we have. And our main focus at the beginning of this year and at the end of last year was we’ve got to be tougher. The games that we were not tough are the ones that we lost, and I think the guys that were here last year, they understand that, they see that, and they see that they have to be mentally and physically tougher for us to be successful.


Matt Wiseley (above) leaves a big hole in the Rams' lineup and in the locker room. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

CoBL: You do graduate four seniors, including Matt Wisely, who was such a big force for you guys. How do you see filling in his role, because he did so many different things.

DB: It’s going to have to be multiple guys. You can’t replace Matt -- smartest kid on the floor, toughest kid on the floor, can guard anyone on the floor at any time. You’re not going to be able to replace that, and that’s our biggest concert. So we’re going to have to try to do that by committee. Ryan Skovranko might be able to do that at times, Terrance Brown might be able to do that, we’re hoping that Jackson Hyland can step into that role. But that is definitely going to be our weakness, no matter who we played or where we played, Matt knew exactly what the other team was running, exactly what we needed to do to combat their offensive strategy or what they were doing defensively and he helped everybody through that. Looking ahead, that is going to have to be a position that is filled by committee, and the guy who does the things that we need him to do is probably going to be the kid who plays the most.

CoBL: If replacing him is the biggest key from a personnel standpoint, what do you identify as the biggest area of focus from a team perspective in the preseason?

DB: Toughness. I think that we are very long, we’re fast in some areas, we’re athletic, but we have to be tough, mentally and physically. And we have to impose our will. And our biggest focus has been, let’s just defend the right way and be really stingy and then take the best available shot on the other end. If we can do those things, I think we’re going to be successful, but...I was really excited and confident that we were going to be in a great spot with all the kids that we brought in, and then if you start to look at everybody who’s in the PSAC East, everybody else got better as well. Mansfield brought in two Division I players, Bloomsburg’s got everybody back and they added [Karonn Davis] from Niagara, [Kutztown head coach] Bernie [Driscoll] added tow kids and he’s got everybody back, so there’s not much of a dropoff from the teams that were successful last year, Shippensburg’s another one. I’m predicting that the East could be stronger than the West, and it’s going to be a dogfight every night.

CoBL: That leads perfectly into my next question -- you’ve been at West Chester nine years, and it seems like the depth of the PSAC East has really improved in the last few seasons. How have you seen the league develop since you’ve been there?

DB: The East is more of like a roller-coaster, because we don’t have as much scholarship money as the west, it’s a lot tougher to get players. The resources are just not there. When I first got here, my goal was to be 1 or 2 in the East every year, because I knew that we were shorthanded when it came to scholarship to compare yourself to the West. So sometimes people are trying to load up and win a championship in one year, we try to maintain a successful program that we can compete with everybody, every year. And what I’ve seen, teams like Kutztown, they’ve had some really great years where they’ve been successful for two or three years in a row, then you have a dropoff; now Kutztown’s starting to come back. Shippensburg had a new coach, but they had a few years where they were down at the bottom of the pack, and now they’re starting to come up to the class of the league. This year, I think anybody can win it, I think there’s about five or six really good teams, but normally there’s probably about three. For three or four years, the two main teams were West Chester and East Stroudsburg, but now and in the next couple of years, it’s going to be five or six that people are talking about on a regular basis.

CoBL: In terms of your freshman class, who do you have coming in and what is your expectations of that group?

DB: Zach Bare, from Maryland...he’s going to be good. His only downfall is that he’s playing behind two really great guards, but he can flat-out play. Tim Toro, I’m probably more impressed with him than anyone that we’ve ever brought in. He’s going to have to develop into a strong player, we have some depth in that position, but if we needed him to play right away, there’s no question he could do it; 6-9, 6-10, he’s put together like a brick house. There’s a possibility that Dom Guerrera might sneak into the lineup this year; we were originally thinking about redshirting him but those things are still up for grabs, depending on how things go over the next month or so. But I think it’s a really good class, and we also brought in two sophomores, [JUCO transfers] Miko Jenkins and Ramon Wright, so a very young group, that’s inexperienced, has no clue what the league is all about, and hopefully Penecale and Malik can lead them. And if they do, then I think we’ll be right where we want to be when it’s all said and done.

CoBL: Finally there’s Thomas White, your only senior; what are your expectations for him?

DB: He’s the X-factor because there’s not a body like him in the league, in the East or the West. If he ever reaches his potential at any point throughout the course of the year, we could be special, because you can’t stop him in the post...he just doesn’t work as hard as we would like him to, day in and day out. But I think he’s definitely the X-factor.

CoBL: So you guys are young, but after last year you won’t be second-guessing anything, you’re young but you have a lot of talent; I guess you have to feel pretty good about where you are for the next 2-3 years?

DB: I think you hit the nail on the head. The next two or three years, I think, we could put together a pretty solid product. The league is good, I don’t know how quickly these kids are going to mature, but I do know if they buy in over the next two or three years, we could have some special seasons.


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